Music for Christmas - 2009

At ArkivMusic, we have some excellent holiday music recommendations to provide a rich and varied soundtrack to your season. Surround yourself with the rewarding sounds of our many favorites below. Find many wonderful gift ideas in our Holiday Gift Guide, and don't miss our selection of great gifts under $25!

There was a time when the holiday season didn't seem quite so loud, the holidays were as soothing and calm as a winter landscape after a snowfall. On this recording, harpist Ayako Shinozaki takes us back to the holiday season we wish we could remember, a time of almost contemplative intimacy.

Here is The King's Singers' original release from 1973, Deck the Hall - Songs for Christmas. The King's Singers are nothing if not various. On this record of Christmas music, they present a collection which, in many ways, reflects their entire output, containing as it does a wide variety of styles.

Originally released 20 years ago, and now available again through ArkivMusic, this immensely popular recording reimagines some of the popular songs of Christmas as if they had been written by Mozart or Beethoven or Debussy.

In this one inexpensive box, Sony has collected five classic Christmas albums from Mario Lanza; Plácido Domingo & the Vienna Choir Boys; Eileen Farrell; Leonard Bernstein, the New York Philharmonic & the Mormon Tabernacle Choir; and the Robert Shaw Chorale.

These carols from France reach back to the 15th century, often pairing secular text with liturgical melody and reflecting a living faith born of a people's deep love of the poetry and the beauty gazed upon in nature.

Another nostalgic treasure for the Holidays - Carmen Dragon's classic recording of his own arrangements performed by the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra and recorded at the Samuel Goldwyn Studios in 1957. First released on LP in 1958, it's been long out-of-print.

Here is the legendary Virgil Fox performing in his inimitable style on the great Aeolian-Skinner organ of Riverside Church in New York City. An album first released in the early 1960's, it is once again available, exclusively through ArkivMusic.

Dutoit leads his excellent cast of soloists, chorus, and orchestra with great care and graceful control, allowing a certain sense of mystery to prevail in the atmosphere, which is effectively enhanced by Simon Eadon's tasteful engineering and the ideal acoustics of Montreal's legendary St-Eustache Church.

Jewels indeed... another in a very satisfying group of recent Christmas choral discs that strive to offer some terrific, rarely recorded "gems" along with a welcome mix of familiar...pieces...The sound, optimally recorded in an ideal church setting, is excellent.

This recording renders the beloved and time-worn work with respect for its innate structural and expositional integrity -- no fancy, quirky self-indulgences, no artificial additives, just pure, unprocessed, organic Handel. A pleasure!